“Everybody in Town Knows What Happened”

The Broken Bow job lasted only about six weeks but I got a call to edit the Stanton Register while the publisher went on a Navy cruise sponsored by the National Editorial Association.

Stanton was a lot different from Broken Bow. It was in eastern Nebraska in a small county of less than 4,000 population about 20 miles wide and 30 miles long with only two towns.

For a 21-year-old just out of college it was good experience, in more ways than one, both personal and professional.

As was the custom on Wednesdays after the paper was put in the mail, some of the newspaper employees stopped for a beer and a pool game at one of the local taverns. On one such day, being single and not expected any place but the restaurant for supper, I stayed a little longer after the other guys had gone on home to their wives.

With no supper on my stomach and an excess of beer, I left the tavern in less than desirable condition. To make a long story short, I woke up the next day and did not remember what had happened the night before.

I walked out of my rooming house but couldn’t find my car. As I walked to work I went by the Chevrolet garage and saw my 1937 Plymouth coupe in the parking lot with two front fenders dented in.

I was badly in need of a cup of coffee. So before going to work, I stopped at a café, only to find the boss (he had since come back from his Navy trip but kept me on for the time being) and the advertising manager.

The only comment the publisher had for me was, “You know who’s going to write the story?”

I still didn’t know for sure what had happened but I found out later I had left the tavern, cut an intersection too short and ran into a building. Witnesses said I backed up and hit the structure several times trying to get around and finally abandoned the car.

The local town marshal stopped at the shop later that morning. “Ken,” he said, “Nearly everybody in town knows what happened so I’m going to have to charge you with something. Since I wasn’t there and it is now a day later, I’ll just make it careless driving and let it go at that.”

I went to court and paid my fine, happy it was not a more serious charge. It did turn out to be a blessing in disguise. Normally a careless driving charge would have just rated one or two lines in the weekly court news. Since I was the news editor, however, I decided to write a longer story with a small headline so I could show the paper played no favorites. I carried the clipping from that story in my billfold for a long time. When someone begged to have a story kept out of the paper, I would produce the clipping and say, “I couldn’t do it for myself, how can I do it for you?”

The above incident points up a recurring problem in the community newspaper business. To have your transgressions published for all to see is difficult to accept, despite the fact that in a small town everybody knows it anyway.

There is a common misconception that influence or money can keep a particular news story from being printed. In my experience, this has never happened where I had any authority nor has it been a practice in other places where I have worked.

When I was at Stanton, and after Jim Cornwell, the publisher of the paper, came back from his Navy trip, a young fellow came into the shop and asked Jim to withhold a story about him being picked up on a driving-while-intoxicated charge.

The man happened to be the son of a quite prominent and wealthy farmer in the county and he was used to getting his way. Jim explained that, once in the court system, all charges and results are printed. There are no exceptions.

When he wouldn’t take no for an answer, Jim finally got mad and said, “Look, I’ve got $50,000 invested in this newspaper. You lay $25,000 on the counter right now and you can have a say in our policy. Otherwise, get the hell out!”